{"id":5038,"date":"2023-04-28T21:17:22","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T16:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=5038"},"modified":"2023-04-28T21:17:24","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T16:17:24","slug":"german-economy-stagnates-teeters-on-brink-of-recession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/news\/german-economy-stagnates-teeters-on-brink-of-recession\/","title":{"rendered":"German economy stagnates, teeters on brink of recession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Frankfurt, Germany: Germany teetered on the brink of recession Friday after official data showed the economy stagnated in the first quarter despite expectations for a slight rebound, as the energy crisis weighed on Europe&#8217;s top economy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gross domestic product came in flat from January to March, according to preliminary figures from federal statistics agency Destatis said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the economy had recorded a contraction again &#8212; after shrinking 0.5 percent in the final quarter of 2022 &#8212; it would have entered a &#8220;technical recession&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the flat reading could still be revised to a contraction when final figures are released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The industrial powerhouse, which had long been heavily reliant on Russian energy, was hit hard after Moscow&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices surging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Analysts and the government predicted for months that soaring inflation, particularly of energy, would push the economy into a sharp winter downturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But expectations changed in recent weeks as Germany&#8217;s vast industrial sector rebounded, on the back of falling energy prices and the reopening of China, a key market for German manufacturers, after long Covid lockdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the economy appears to have avoided the worst, the first quarter reading was below expectations from analysts surveyed by financial data firm FactSet for an expansion of 0.2 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Destatis, exports and investments helped to support GDP but household and government consumption declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The GDP data &#8220;illustrates that the industrial renaissance of the last two months has not been enough to get the economy out of recessionary territory,&#8221; said ING economist Carsten Brzeski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The overall direction for the German economy is clear: this year will bring a long flirtation with stagnation.&#8221;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frankfurt, Germany: Germany teetered on the brink of recession Friday after official data showed the economy stagnated in the first quarter despite expectations for a slight rebound, as the energy crisis weighed on Europe&#8217;s top economy. Gross domestic product came in flat from January to March, according to preliminary figures from federal statistics agency Destatis [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}